The Darkness Knows Your Name
by Spindleshanking
Summary: There is a town in Maine that every monster you've ever feared calls home. When Emma Swan receives a strange letter, she is drawn to the ruined town of Storybrooke, where a malevolent evil has waited 28 years for her return. (Part 2 of the "In That Darkness When I'm Blind" series.) [Rumbelle & SQ][AU]
1. Welcome to Storybrooke

After much debate, I'm classifying this as a normal story because it really is more along the lines of OUAT placed in the Silent Hill multiverse with some canon merging rather than a crossover in the strictest sense. No characters, locations, nor any parts of the storyline appear from the game, just broad concepts and imagery. In short, the fic will be entirely comprehensible to non-Silent Hill fans, and those of you that _do_ know the games will at least catch the occasional inside joke and reference.

Promises of Rumbelle and Swan Queen further down the line.

* * *

A yellow classic Volkswagen beetle rolls into town and stops for the red light at the intersection of First and Main. A broken clock tower claims eight-fifteen, but in reality it's late afternoon though it seems much later than that. A heavy fog hangs over the town, obscuring any concept of a horizon and dulling what little sun pricks through the gray, overcast sky.

Judging from the washed-out, peeling facades of the various shops lining the streets, Emma gets the feeling that this was once a colorful, quaint little town, until... something. Now the place feels abandoned, from the flaking plaster to the sun-bleached "CLOSED" signs in almost every store display. Most of the windows are boarded up or smashed and the ones that aren't are black behind the glass. It feels like unseen eyes are watching her from every angle, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. There's a palpable darkness she senses rather than sees that saturates her surroundings, covering her, soaking into her skin, indelible.

Immediately Emma wants to turn the car around and gun it until she's back outside town limits. Instead she grips the leather of the wheel until her knuckles turn white, and looks to the computer printed map resting on the dash.

A week ago, Emma received an email from an address she didn't recognize by a person she didn't know. Attached was a copy of a nearly thirty-year-old newspaper article relating the story of how an infant girl was found abandoned on the side of a highway. That didn't interest her terribly—she almost knew the text by heart now—but what did interest her was the message that followed:

"Dear Ms. Swan,

It may interest you to learn that the town nearest this highway is Storybrooke, Maine. If you would like more information on the possible whereabouts of your family, please meet me at the enclosed address at your earliest convenience, preferably between the hours of 3 and 6 pm. I think it will be worth your while.

Signed,

A Friend."

Her bullshit meter had gone off the minute she read the email. After searching her entire life for her past, some mysterious 'friend' shows up promising all the answers—offers like that usually ended with your 'friend' conveniently needing a little money before they could tell you anything and then disappearing the second they got it.

In Emma's experience, anything that seemed too good to be true was.

Still, something about it had stuck with her. Why would someone go through all the trouble of tracking her down just to try and con a little money? And based on what, a thirty-year-old newspaper article that didn't even mention her name? Maybe it was just desperation on her part.

There was nothing else about a Storybrooke, Maine that she could find except for the fact that it apparently existed and really was the closest town to where she'd been found.

In the end, she decided it couldn't hurt to show up. And according to the directions, it should be right around...

Just up ahead, Emma spots the sign glowing ominously red in the fog: "Granny's Diner." It too looks victim to the poor local economy, but she has driven too far to turn around now. She sits at the intersection for another thirty seconds before she realizes the light must be broken because it hasn't changed or even flickered, as though determined to permanently discourage all visitors from venturing any closer. So she shifts her foot back to the gas and sails right on through, and pulls over to park on the street outside the diner.

Only when she switches off the engine and steps out into the fog does she becomes aware of how eerily quiet Storybrooke is, too. No birds, no traffic, no barking dogs, no wind even—just oppressive, blanketing silence. The slamming car door echoes uncomfortably loud on the street and again she feels watched.

Not wanting to be exposed any longer than she must, Emma walks quickly up to the front entry and tries the handle. She half expects it to be locked, but to her surprise the door opens into a small, homey eatery. The interior is drab, but it's brightly lit and actually open for business. Most importantly, she sees people: a dumpy, old woman behind the bar writing in a ledger and a leggy brunette waitress mincing her way across the checkered floor in stiletto heels. Both of them turn to look in Emma's direction when she opens the door.

Simultaneously their eyes widen and the waitress drops her tray of glasses, which shatter hard on the floor in all directions. The three women stare at each other for a beat, and then the old woman is the first to recover.

"Ruby, stop lollygagging!"

Ruby with her bright red highlights and mini skirt looks exactly the sort of girl who would talk back, instead gawks at Emma a second longer, then approaches her nervously.

"Can I help you?" she asks.

Emma tries not to feel like a sideshow freak under their dual stare. "Uh, yeah. I'm supposed to meet someone here."

"Are you Emma Swan?" asks a high, prepubescent voice from seemingly nowhere.

Both Emma and Ruby turn to stare at a short, dark-haired, school-aged kid who suddenly twists around in one of the booth tables with a smile and a wave.

"Yeah, that's me."

"I'm Henry."

Emma stares hard at the boy, shaking her head. Suddenly she's more confused than ever. "I was expecting someone..."

"Taller? I know," Henry cheerfully supplies, then looks to Ruby. "Two hot chocolates please."

"Coming right up." Ruby eyes the both of them with something approaching suspicion, but she goes to place the order all the same.

Emma slides into the seat opposite the boy and looks him over. Dressed in a uniform for the local private school, he can't be any older than ten or eleven, and although terribly pale, a broad, dimpled grin lights his face as though utterly unaware that he resides in one of the most disconcerting places Emma has ever had the misfortune of visiting.

"Alright, kiddo, spill. What's your game? Who are you?"

"I'm your son."

"I don't have a son."

"Ten years ago, did you give a baby up for adoption?"

Emma stares uncomfortably, the room growing unbearably hot. This was not happening to her. This is not the family she wants to meet.

Taking her silence as confirmation, he adds: "That was me."

"Somehow this raises more questions than it answers. What's with all the cloak-and-dagger? And how do you even know about..." She isn't sure how to finish that sentence. How did he know it was her in the article, which mentioned no names? And come to that, how could he possibly know that she was searching for more about her origins?

"I'm not sure you're ready for that."

"Try me."

Turning to the backpack beside him, Henry unzips it and retrieves a large, brown leather book with the words 'Once Upon A Time' embossed in ornate gold on the front. He speaks while he thumbs through the pages. "I needed you to come here because this town is cursed."

"Oh, so that's what the problem is," Emma remarks facetiously.

"Yup. And you're going to fix it."

"Uh huh."

The more Henry speaks, the less sense anything makes. But she couldn't blame the kid. If any town was cursed, it would probably be this one.

Two steaming mugs of hot chocolate are placed between them by Ruby who smiles carefully them both before retreating. There are sticks of cinnamon in both of them, which unnerves Emma further. That's exactly how she likes it, but how could have anyone known? It is just a local thing? She hopes it is. If so, that's intriguing. Or entirely coincidental.

Reaching for her mug, she blows on it before taking a cautious sip. "And how did you know that baby in the article was me? It didn't give names."

Henry pats the book on the table. "It's all in here."

"That's a book of fairy tales."

"That actually happened. An evil curse ripped everyone from the Enchanted Forest and imprisoned them here. You're the only one who can fix it."

"And why is that?"

"Because you're the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. They sent you through a wardrobe to save you from the curse, so you would one day return to bring back all the happy endings and save them all."

When Emma had been promised additional information on the whereabouts of her parents, this hadn't exactly ranked anywhere on the list of options she had entertained over the years.

"Look, kid—"

"I have a name, you know."

"...Henry, I'm sure you thought you were helping me and I appreciate the effort, but you have to admit this is all a little far-fetched. And if Snow White is actually my mother, wouldn't she have already come looking for me?"

"Nobody remembers who they are, so she can't. But, fine, don't believe the bit about Snow White. But what about the curse? Look around you. Can't you see it?"

"A lot of towns fall apart. It happens."

"Not like this."

"Then why don't people just leave?"

Henry's face crinkles in distress and his voice drops uncomfortably to a murmur. "Because really bad things happen if they try."

"Like what?"

Their conversation is interrupted by Granny.

"Henry, you really should leave now if you're going to get home before dark." There's a tense urgency about this observation that strikes Emma as extremely odd.

"Thanks, Granny." He turns on Emma. "Maybe you could drive me?"

"Kid..."

"Please? It's kind of a long walk."

"You really should drive him," Granny suggests from behind the counter. "You'd be doing his mother a huge favor." And from the sounds of it, Granny, too. Both Granny and Ruby stare expectantly at her as though refusing him a ride is tantamount to throwing him to the wolves.

This is why Emma hates small towns. Everyone cares far too much about everybody else.

"And it looks like I'm driving you," Emma says wearily, setting a few dollars on the table, then fishing for her keys while exiting the diner with her newfound progeny.

Henry directs her to a drab, three-story tenement building that looks just as uninhabited as the rest of the town. Emma parks on the curb and looks it over, feeling like a bucket of cold water has been thrown over her. This is exactly the sort of place she lived at when she got out of jail and exactly the sort of place she never wanted her son to be raised in. More than ever, Emma wishes she'd never come, never seen, never known.

"Home sweet home," Henry says with a smile and hops out of the car, insensible to her dismay.

Inside is not much better. The wallpaper is yellowed and horribly dated, so stained in some places that the spots cannot be removed without taking away parts of the wall with it. It smells dank and airless and the grimy windows are padlocked shut, preventing any ventilation. Elevator broken, they take the squeaking stairs up the next floor and trek down to number 208.

Emma is surprised that a boy his age has a house key. He lets them in without a word. The apartment is small. That's about all she has time to register before a dark-haired woman leaps from the couch towards them.

"Henry, where have you been?" she demands furiously, grabbing the boy by his shoulders, but the anger quickly dissolves to tears and near-hysteria. "Your grandfather and I have been worried sick! When you didn't come home after school... Anything could have happened to you! Of all the reckless things to do! We thought you were dead!"

Dead seems overly dramatic to Emma, but she keeps that to herself. It's then that she notices the balding older gentleman lurking uncomfortably in the kitchen. He's drying his hands on a towel, with a distantly worried expression as he watches the three of them.

Henry allows himself to be pulled into a tight, clinging hug.

"I was getting help, Mom."

"Help?" the woman echoes and pulls away. For the first time, Henry's mother looks in Emma's direction and registers the presence of another person standing in her doorway. She carefully wipes her face while she stands up, summoning composure and dignity. Her mascara-smeared eyes burn with suspicion, some of the only warmth Emma's seen since coming to town. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

Emma doesn't know where to begin in a situation like this, "I'm..."

"She's my birth mother," Henry says with all the tact befitting his age. "I told you about her, Mom, remember?"

"Henry..." The amount of emotional pain concentrated in those two syllables has Emma already backing towards the door. "Henry, this has to stop."

"No, it can't! You have to trust me on this, Mom. This is important."

"I'm not trusting a ten-year-old boy with a Messiah Complex."

It's Henry's turn to look pained. "That's not my job..."

"Henry, please, go to your room. We'll talk about this in a minute."

"But, Mom, listen!"

"Henry, I won't ask you again!"

The grandfather finally moves from the kitchen to stand beside his daughter, looking towards Henry with that same worried expression in which his face seems permanently fixed.

"I think you should do as your mother says, Junior," he says

The boy's face falls. With one last look at Emma, he turns and trudges obediently into the next room over, closing the door behind him.

"All the way, Henry," the woman calls over her shoulder.

The door reluctantly clicks shut.

She continues. "I want to apologize for my son's behavior, Miss...?"

"Swan. Emma Swan." The emphasis on 'my son' doesn't elude Emma and she doesn't want to go anywhere near that.

"I really don't know what's gotten into him," the old man says in a low, soft voice. "This is the first time he's ever done anything like this. I hope he hasn't inconvenienced you?"

"No, not at all. Kids will be kids," Emma replies, as if she actually knows anything about children.

"At least stay for dinner," he continues in his low, soothing voice. "It's the least we can do for seeing Henry home..."

The woman looks as if she might protest, but at the last second manages a cold, reluctant smile.

"It's really not a big deal," Emma insists, feeling flushed and cornered. "I just drove him from the diner is all. He could have walked that easily."

"I'll be the one to decide what is and what isn't a big deal," the dark-haired woman says with a little more force than Emma feels necessary. "Stay for dinner, Miss Swan. Like my father says, it's the least we can do."

Emma's instincts tell her to run far and fast, but her stomach begs another alternative. A little hot chocolate is not adequate substitute for food and aside from a cheeseburger she grabbed on the drive down she had been too wound up by Henry's email to remember to eat today. Hell, she can't even remember the last time she had a proper home-cooked meal that she didn't try to make herself. Her traitorous mouth begins to water at the thought.

"I guess I could stay for a bit," she concedes, shoving her hands in her pockets and looking between the two with an awkward smile.

Regina Mills lives with her son and her father, Henry Senior, in a two bedroom apartment that's just barely too small for the three of them. Much like their dreary building, Regina's decorating has the air of faded glory, like a woman of reduced circumstances making the best with what they once had. The once-fashionable, scuffed furniture stands on stained carpet while shabby drapes completely cover the windows. It makes Emma extremely uncomfortable to be sitting at their dinner table sharing the light meal her begrudging host insisted on making. She shouldn't be eating their food when it's clear how strained their finances are right now. And that's an assumption Emma feels even worse for making.

"So, Storybrooke, eh?" she asks to break the silence. It's just the adults now; Henry had been sent to bed. "What's the story here? It seems pretty empty."

Regina sits back with a mug of cider, frowning. "It used to be an old mining town. But it's always been like this, as long as I can remember."

"There aren't as many here as there once were," Henry Senior says reflectively. He's doing dishes in the kitchen. "But not so few as you imagine."

"Lots of people moving away, then?"

"You might say that," Regina diplomatically replies, her expression stoic and her eyes dark. "But no one really does. Strange things happen to people who leave Storybrooke."

"Strange like what?"

An awkward, hesitant pause follows while father and daughter exchange unreadable looks.

"Cars are found abandoned on the side of the road," Regina says with a shrug. "People who say they'll call when they get to their destination never do. They... disappear. A lot of people just seem to disappear."

Something about that chills Emma. Not the confirmation that people seem inexplicably trapped in this town, but that a grain of truth appeared to exist in Henry's wild conspiracy theories.

"What do the police say? Don't you have a city council or someone to complain to?"

"Our sheriff does the best he can, but he's only one man. And... the closest thing we have to a mayor is Mr Gold. He owns the town." Regina sips at her drink. "But he's difficult to get a hold of. Nobody sees him much these days, not in person anyway."

"And even then, he's a little..." Henry begins, choosing his words carefully. He hesitates too long. Regina whirls around to shoot her father a sharp look.

"He's not crazy," she snaps. "Times have been hard on him, too, but he's been good to us. Especially you."

"I was going to say out of touch," the old man continues, not meeting Regina's blazing eyes, looking to Emma instead. "You only go to Mr Gold when you've exhausted all other options. If he can't solve your problem..." Henry gives a fatalistic shrug. "Still, it's not so many people in the long run. Happiness is where you make it and we're happy here."

Regina's smile is wan and false. "We've been more fortunate than many."

Suddenly Emma is beginning to see why Henry Junior so desperately wanted to believe in the existence of a curse, of fairy tales; that the world can't be as scary as all this, so uncertain, so hopeless. While there is definitely more darkness here than Emma is comfortable with, she wonders who will have to break it to him that, yes, the world is actually a very scary, uncertain, and hopeless place

With conversation winding down, Emma feels the urge to move on returning. Henry Senior has already worked through most of the dishes and there are few reasons for her to stay. It's getting late and the drive to Boston would be a long and dangerous one if she got tired. She doubts Storybrooke has a 7-11 she can get caffeine from.

"Thanks for the dinner, guys. And you're right, the cider was amazing... But I should really get going," Emma says suddenly, slowly getting to her feet. "It was nice meeting the both of you."

She's a little surprised to realize that she means it. They're not perfect, but they seem to love each other. And they love Henry. Regina's frantic worry was proof enough of that. Whatever problems Henry and this town might have, at least he had a family that cared about him. It was more than she'd had.

The old man peers at her, seeming puzzled. "Where are you going to go?"

"Home?" Emma freezes, looking between the two of them, that freak show feeling returning. "Boston's only a few hours away."

"You'll never make it beyond town limits before dark," he explains patiently as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You'll have to sleep on the couch."

Both Emma and the daughter seem to have the same reaction.

"Daddy!" the woman hisses quietly, staring pointedly at him.

He returns the look. "Regina, she can't go."

"No, seriously, it's fine." Emma backs uncomfortably towards the door. "You don't understand. I've lived in some really sketchy places before. I can handle myself."

Henry tries again. "It's a long drive and we wouldn't want anything happening. It's really no trouble."

That's another thing Emma hates about small towns. Hospitality under pain of death.

"Look, I really don't want to be rude, but you guys have already done enough for me. More than I deserve." That sounds pretty good, she thinks. Casually she continues shuffling to the door. Almost there and then she'd be free.

Lines appear on Henry's face as that expression of worry and concern returns. He looks to Regina for help, but his daughter is too busy staring down into her mug.

"If she says she'll be alright, Daddy, she'll be alright. I'm sure she has a busy schedule," she says quietly, firmly. Regina looks to Emma with the most sincere smile she's shown all evening. "Have a safe drive back, Miss Swan."

And may we never meet again seems to be the unspoken implication, one Emma is totally okay with. Henry doesn't look convinced, and the worry lines on his brow grow deeper. The look he gives her is uncomfortably paternal.

"If you change your mind..."

"Thanks, but I'll be fine. Honest." She can't meet his eyes, looking to his shoulder instead. "You guys have a good night." Before anyone can stop her, she grabs the door handle and lets herself out as quickly as was polite.

The whole walk down to her car she tries to tell herself it's fine that she never said goodbye to Henry.

Dark trees flicker past a little faster as Emma leans on the gas. It feels good to be leaving. The sooner she gets out of here, the sooner she can forget. Even though it wasn't something she thought about everyday, somewhere deep inside it's satisfying to know what happened to her baby, to know where he finally ended up. To know that she's done the right thing.

Even with the whole fairy tale obsession, he's still better adjusted than she was at that age, plus his family intensely cares for him. He's not a meal ticket to them; he's their child. The whole curse thing is a phase, he'll grow out of it. He'll be fine.

At the same time though it feels worse, because now she has his face and name and of his family, too. Now she'll be able to exactly imagine him doing Cub Scouts, doing high school, wondering what his first job is, his first girlfriend, what his grades are like. And the temptation will always be there to keep tabs on them. She knows where they live now. She could find them again if she wanted.

She reaches for the car radio, hoping for something to distract herself. At first the local stations pick up nothing but static, but with a bit of fiddling she finds one that's playing music. It's a woman's voice, slow and sad—Emma doesn't know the song.

Knowledge is a burden. This is why she wanted a closed adoption. After tonight, she will never be the same again and part of her wishes she could return to her ignorance. She needs to forget Henry. He found his family, now it's time for her to find hers.

Emma looks up and suddenly there's something in the road—a young woman with auburn hair loose around her shoulders and a faded blue dress. Emma slams on the breaks swearing, trying to swerve out of the way. Her Volkswagen screeches in protest. A waxy face with gaping black sockets shining in the headlights are all she remembers before her car collides with the sign on the side of the road.


	2. The Woman in the Road

Emma wakes with an ax cleaving her head in two, or at least that's what it feels like anyway. She presses her palm against her forehead to help relieve the pain only to find this makes it worse. When she feels the rough texture of a bandaid stretched above her eyebrow, her eyes shoot open, the light sending another knife-edge of pain through her skull.

Emma realizes that she's lying on a strange, lumpy couch in a strange apartment with air smelling so distinctively thick, spicy, and musky that it can mean only one thing: bachelor pad. With increasing trepidation, she glances, more carefully this time, to the armchair in her peripheral vision and spies the owner. He wears a scruffy beard and a scuffed leather jacket, and—most importantly—he's still asleep. She tries to sit up, but her head spins dangerously, forcing her to slide back down and swallow nausea with a soft groan. Immediately she digs through her jacket for her phone. It's there, thank god, but completely useless as she can't get a signal. Panic begins to sink in its long teeth.

Emma has absolutely no memory of what transpired to get her here. Last she remembers she was hurtling out of Storybrooke and then... a woman? But there was something strange about her, something Emma can't quite put her finger on. What had she been doing standing in the middle of the road?

"Ahh, you're awake."

It's an unfamiliar, masculine voice with a lilting accent she can't place. With dread, she looks over to the man in the chair, who is now regarding her with alert, storm-gray eyes.

"My name is Graham Humbert. I'm sheriff in Storybrooke," he explains gently, one hand raised as if to calm a skittish animal. "Do you remember what happened?"

Emma hesitantly lowers her phone. "I was driving," she begins carefully, casting her thoughts back to the previous night. "It was dark and... I think I hit a sign?"

"Yeah, you hit it pretty hard. Same with your head."

One mystery solved, thousands more to go. The most important of which being: "Can you tell me where I am?"

"I'm actually supposed to ask those questions. Y'know, to check for a concussion?" There's something inherently warm and gentle about his tone. A hint of a smile pulls at his lips. "You're at my apartment. It's a breach of protocol, I know, but I didn't have any other option."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Trust me."

"Seeing as I don't actually remember getting here on my own power, I'd rather not for the time being, if it's all the same to you."

"Nothing happened, I promise," he assures her, with a smile still on his face. "Well, I did go through your jacket for identification. But that's as far as it went, scout's honor."

"Uh-huh. And why couldn't you have, I don't know, taken me to the hospital or the police station?"

Graham's smile finally falters. "The station was my first choice, but... extenuating circumstances prevented that. And you don't really go to the hospital here unless you absolutely have to. This was genuinely the safest place I could take you."

To Emma's dismay, her almost supernatural ability to sniff out liars says he's telling the truth, or at least believes himself to be telling it. Honestly, she wishes he were lying. She'd much rather deal with a bent cop than whatever these "extenuating circumstances" were.

She has nothing to say to that, so Graham gets to his feet and consults his watch. "It's... six in the morning, which means you should be able to leave in about an hour. Can I get you some coffee?"

"Why can't I leave now? What's in an hour?" She slowly sits up on the couch, holding her head. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did, but she works to keep the pain from her face, from her body. She'd rather him not be aware of the extent of her discomfort.

"Because that's sunrise," he explains softly.

"What's with that, anyway? Everyone I've met so far is terrified of the dark."

Graham frowns at her. "It's not the dark we're afraid of. It's what's in it."

"Okay, so what's in it?" She regrets asking before the words are even out of her mouth.

Graham hesitates. "Did you... see anything? Before you crashed?"

Emma's heart quickens a little. "Yeah, actually. A woman."

His brow furrows. "A woman?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know if anyone's told you this, but when people try to leave Storybrooke-"

"-Bad things happen," Emma interrupts. "I got the memo."

"Well in pretty much every case I've had, they're gone when I reach the car. Just.. vanished into thin air. No blood, no signs of violence. Just gone." Graham walks into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. "You're the only one who was still there. Which is why I'm curious if you saw something, if something was there."

A chill runs through Emma's body that she manages to hide. "Definitely a woman."

"What did she look like?"

Emma reluctantly casts her memory back. "Longish, reddish brown hair... blue dress. It was all tattered and stained. I didn't really see her face." That last part is a bald-faced lie. She remembers exactly what she saw: a waxy, white face with no emotion and no discernible features beyond two, gaping black holes where her eyes ought to be. But for obvious reasons, she would rather keep this information to herself.

Graham is quiet a second, so Emma presses the issue. "Why? Have you seen her before?"

"No. It's the first I've ever heard of her." Graham's brows furrow again. "It's strange. I actually got an anonymous tip off about you, said they saw you heading for the border. That's never happened before."

"Man or a woman's voice?" Emma has a sneaking suspicion she knew who it was.

"A man's. Whoever it was saved your life. Normally I don't find the wreck until morning. If there is one."

Henry Senior. She'd bet money on it, something that makes her feel even more uncomfortably indebted to him than she already was, all underneath a new slathering of guilt. Somehow she would have to repay him, or at least thank him. Somehow.

She distracts herself from this awkward social obligation by asking, "and you have no idea why people are disappearing?"

Graham frowns while he cleans two mugs in the sink. "Honestly, I'm not really concerned with 'why' right now so much as I am with 'how'. And there are a lot of things out in those woods."

"Like what?"

A substantial pause follows during which he stares pointedly at the white ceramic in his hands. Then he says, "You're going to think I'm crazy."

"This whole thing is crazy. What's out there?"

"Things like..." He grimaces, as though trying to remember last night's dream. "Like they look human, but they don't move like one." Graham's head jerks as he suppresses a visible shudder, then his demeanor changes entirely. "Anyway we shouldn't really be talking about it. What about you? What brings you to Storybrooke? We never get visitors." The smile returns.

This sudden about-face puts Emma immediately on the defensive and she deflects like a natural. "Um, personal reasons, if that's alright with you. I came looking for something, that's all."

Either he's lying to her (feels unlikely) or something is actually going on in those woods. Given what she saw last night, she's willing to believe the latter. And 'we shouldn't really be talking about it'? That's not suspicious at all.

"Did you find it?" he asks.

"Not yet. So, uh, how about that coffee?"

"Coming right up."

He smiles again and Emma lets herself lay back down on the couch, trying not to think about how much she misses Boston right now.

The second the clock hits seven, Emma is more than ready to leave. Her head still bobbles if she moves it too quickly, but otherwise she feels much better with a little coffee and toast inside her. While Graham locks up, Emma stands awkwardly in the hall inspecting yellow wallpaper that seems strangely familiar...

"Emma!"

She turns to see young Henry bounding down the hallway to her, his face bright with excitement, lunch box clattering noisily with each step.

"Henry!" Not far behind is his mother, who follows him out into the hallway in a silk bathrobe, arms folded across her chest. Emma can't help but notice how much younger Regina looks this morning, her face softer without all that heavy makeup. But upon seeing Emma and Graham, she stops dead with a stony expression, her eyes flicking between the two of them. Emma doesn't know why she feels embarrassed, but she does. And it has nothing to do with the fact that Regina's makeup isn't done yet this morning.

"Morning, Regina," Graham says carefully.

"Good morning, Sheriff." The chill in her voice seems to reduce the temperature of the entire hallway.

Henry seems completely unaware of the tension in the air, or is so accustomed to it he doesn't care, and he waves to the sheriff, beaming. "Hi, Graham!"

"How's it going, Henry?" He ruffles the boy's hair, looking first to his neighbor and then to Emma. Emma immediately notices this ranked attention and wonders just what kind of bad blood exists between the two. There was definitely something there, or used to be.

"Seems you all know each other," Graham says by way of conversation, tossing his keys nervously in his hands.

"She's my birth mother," Henry informs him, "and she's here to break the curse. You remember, right? Oh, hey, Mom, can Emma walk me to school?" The boy whirls around to face Regina, eyes shining as though it were Christmas.

Everything about this moment seems to be too much for Regina. She's backed up against the door frame, jaw set, eyes burning, and Emma wonders what happened to the Regina she met last night. She's seen friendlier hissing cats. But all it takes is one look at Henry's expectant face for her to cave.

"Only if your grandfather goes with you," she snaps, then turns to call through her open apartment door a little more harshly than Emma felt necessary, "Daddy, Henry's ready to go! He's going to be late if you don't hurry up!"

"You know, I'm gonna get going," Graham murmurs to Emma, then begins to back away. "If you need anything, anyone can direct you to the station. And, uh, stay away from the local signage." He smiles a little; he's joking. His eyes fly one last time to Regina before he turns and retreats for the stairs, his boots heavy on the squeaking steps.

Yeah, definitely several volumes of history there.

And then they're back to where they started, with an awkward pause growing increasingly more so by the second. Emma rubs her arm and tries to kill the moment before it can reach its full potential. "So I, uh... crashed my car and the sheriff saved me. Looks like I should've taken you guys up on that offer, huh?" She tries a smile, too, but it doesn't seem to help things.

"And deny you the _pleasure_ of meeting our sheriff?" asks Regina dryly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Emma couldn't miss the hint of disgust in the other woman's voice even if she tried. Hey, it wasn't _like_ that.

"See, Emma, I told you!" Henry cheerfully interrupts, before Emma can voice a protest, apparently unconcerned that his other mother nearly died last night. "Bad things happen to people who try to leave. Do you believe me now?"

"It was dark and I was distracted," Emma insists. "And distracted driving leads to crashing." If she didn't want to tell Graham about the woman, then she sure as hell wasn't going to tell Henry. He'd read too much into it.

Suddenly she hears a low, soothing voice. "Miss Swan! So you decided to stay after all."

As Henry Senior steps into the hall, he seems to bring back all the warmth Regina chased out. He smiles and offers Emma a hand, which she shakes.

Emma replies with a grimace. "Wasn't really my choice, but here I am!"

"He's going to be late if you don't get a move on," Regina interrupts, practically talking over Emma. She pulls her son into a tight hug better suited for sending him off to summer camp rather than a day of school, one which he doesn't protest. "Henry, have a good day today and don't wander off again. I mean it. Grandpa will be there to pick you up after." This elicits a soft, obligatory "I won't" from the boy and she releases him. "Alright boys, off you go." She doesn't seem to have anything else to say to Emma, which simultaneously pleases and annoys her.

As they head towards the stairwell, Emma casts one last look at Regina. The dark-haired woman is pressing her hands against her abdomen while she watches them depart, clear anxiety shining in her eyes, or at least until they unexpectedly lock with Emma's. Then her expression shifts to something unreadable and she retreats into the apartment.

As if everything wasn't already confusing enough.

–

Storybrooke's dawn is a secondhand sunrise, gray and discouraging, bringing nothing to the town except cold light. And even that doesn't travel very far. Threatening shadows still cling stubbornly to houses and bushes and the sickly, claw-like trees black beneath a uniformly white sky. Their footsteps on the concrete sidewalk are the only thing she can hear. What she wouldn't do for a couple morning birds just to make everything feel a little less surreal. Surprisingly, though, the fog doesn't seem as thick today, but Emma wonders how much of that is due to actual weather conditions versus the perceived safety of walking companions. She doesn't dare comment upon this aloud either because, once again, she is confident Henry Junior will place far too much significance in it.

Speaking of things Emma doesn't want to talk about, Henry Junior's right on the ball this morning. As he falls into step with her, he promptly demands: "So what happened when you tried to leave?"

Her head is starting to hurt again. "I told you, I was distracted. I took my eyes off the road to adjust the radio and crashed into the sign."

"Really?" Henry sounds perplexed. "So nothing weird at all?"

"Nope."

"Huh."

Henry Senior, on the other hand, has far more sensible questions. "Are you sure you're alright, Miss Swan? That's a very nasty bump."

"Yeah, I am. It looks worse than it is, honest. Though I'm pretty sure my car looks worse."

Ugh, her car. It suddenly occurs to her that it might be completely wrecked after last night's misadventure. She desperately prays that no matter what condition it's in, it'll still drive her to Boston. Then it can fall apart and she'll happily junk it. But get her to back to Boston at least. The thought of being trapped in this town—the thought of not having _transportation_ in this town—is enough to overwhelm Emma with despair.

In the distance, she suddenly hears the deep clang of bells, which startles her after being surrounded by nothing but silence for so many minutes. Both Henries look quickly in the sound's direction and in a moment of serendipity, like something out of the movies, the fog thins enough to see the clock tower from where they stand. Its face reads ten-to-seven. Henry Junior's face splits into a huge grin. "See, Emma? The clock's working again. It's proof the curse is weakening! Now you have to stay!"

"Actually, I think it's actually a sign you should be getting to school," she relies dryly.

"Will you still be here after?" Henry asks, face pleading. "Can I see you then?"

Emma commits to an "umm..." that clearly isn't good enough for him.

"You can't go yet! You can't go while I'm at school. Think what that will do to my abandonment issues!" Both Henry Senior and Emma fix Henry with a sharp look, guilt and betrayal nipping at her in turns, while the boy flashes an abashed grin. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding, but seriously, it won't kill you to stay eight more hours, will it?"

"I guess not," she concedes, really not liking the emotional grip Henry already has on her. She doesn't like feeling obligated or responsible, especially not for a kid she gave up years ago so she wouldn't have to.

Already they're standing on the edge of Storybrooke Elementary and Emma's surprised at just how close the school is to the apartment. It can't be more than seven or eight minutes away, a walk which even a boy Henry's age should be able to make unaccompanied. Regina is beginning to look more and more like the winning nominee for Most Protective Parent Award in Emma's eyes and she hates that she's forming an opinion on this subject.

"There's Missus Nolan," Henry Senior murmurs softly. "Have a good day at school, Henry."

"Yeah, have a good day at school," Emma adds lamely.

The boy looks reluctant to leave, but he waves to them both and bounds off towards the school's open door where a dark-haired, pale, mousy woman in understated colors waits anxiously, counting children as they arrive. She greets Henry with a smile and ushers him inside, but the smile fades immediately once he passes.

It's then that Emma realizes just how few children are actually in the yard. The bell should be ringing in about ten minutes and for a school this size, children should be arriving en masse. A full-sized yellow bus parks out front, but only seven or eight children disembark and walk briskly across the pavement. None of them dawdles, none of them plays. And now that she thinks about it, Emma hears no laughter, barely any chatter, just children hurrying into the school with single-minded purpose she's never seen in students of any age. Of all the places in town, an elementary school should rarely be quiet and yet this one is. Still, it's early in the morning.

"So, this fairy tale thing," Emma asks, looking to the old man beside her. "I've been meaning to ask. How long has he...?"

Henry Senior sighs quietly. "Ever since he got that book a few months ago, it's all he talks about. We didn't think too much about it at first because it's normal for a boy his age to develop strong interests. But then he became convinced the stories were real and now there's nothing we can do to change his mind."

"Have you had him... y'know, seen by anybody?"

"Oh, I don't think that's really necessary yet..." the older man says with a grim expression. No wonder his face is so lined; Emma hasn't seen a real smile on him yet. "He has a powerful imagination. I'm sure it's just a phase."

"Yeah, probably..." Emma doesn't press the issue any further. It's not any of her business how the Mills raise Henry. She just wishes she could get rid of how much she is beginning to care about him. It's dragging her into that awkward limbo of being his mother without actually being his mother. She never should have responded to that email.

The final bell rings and the mousy teacher seems satisfied, even at a distance. She is about to follow her pupils indoors when she looks directly at Emma and Henry Senior, who linger on the edge of campus. The teacher smiles and waves, and the old man returns the gesture.

They turn away from the school and walk in thoughtful silence for a few moments, apparently backtracking towards the apartment building the Mills call home. They soon stop at an intersection, but hesitate to part. Henry looks to her, looking as though he is about to say something, but Emma speaks first.

"Thanks, by the way," she says, eyes dropping to the pavement.

"For what?"

"The sheriff told me someone tipped him off I was leaving." Emma tries to meet his gaze, which is soulful and brown like a basset hound's. It's harder than expected because she can tell he actually cares, for no reason she can come up with. "Said if it weren't for that, I'd probably be dead."

Henry Senior looks confused. "It wasn't me, though I'm grateful someone did."

Emma blinks. She doesn't really know how to react to that. It's not often someone saves her life and even less frequently does she accidentally thank someone who didn't. "Oh."

"It seems someone is looking out for you here," Henry adds, touching a hand to her shoulder. Even though her leather jacket, she can tell it's heavy and warm. To the right person, it could be comforting. "That goes far in a place like this. If you need somewhere to say," he continues, "don't hesitate to stop by. Don't mind Regina. She doesn't react well to change and... we've had quite a bit the last little while."

There are questions Emma could ask about that, but doesn't. It's really none of her business. Instead, she murmurs a quiet "thanks" and shoves her hands into her pockets. "So, I'll see you around?"

"I should say so. Keep safe, Miss Swan." Henry smiles at her, then turns to make his slow way back home. The fog obscures him from view before he reaches the door.

Emma keeps walking, too. After a few moments, she is finally by herself, something simultaneously gratifying but unexpectedly melancholy and Emma isn't sure she likes that. She's always been on her own and prefers it that way. But now she feels ties to this place, or at least to a few people, and... no, this is not an avenue she is pursuing right now.

She begins to make her way in earnest towards Main Street to see about her car. Without it, she feels so exposed on these empty fog isn't helping, swallowing up street signs and turning buildings into vague hulking shapes in the gray. Here and there a lone street light still flickers against the morning gloom.

Emma pulls her jacket a little tighter.

Five minutes later the buildings have become smaller and sparser, looming brick storefronts giving way to houses. The road under her feet has gotten rougher and she curses as she stumbles over a crack in the pavement

Something tells her this isn't the way back to Main Street.

Emma glances around, hoping to find a street sign or storefront to tell her where she might be, but all she sees are empty windows and peeling siding.

She realizes she hasn't seen another person since Henry left her, and yet she cannot shake that ever-present feeling that she's being watched. She wonders if the locals feel the same way on the street or if it's just her.

As it happens, she actually is being watched.

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma spies a blonde girl about Henry's age sitting a small distance away, alone on an old, red brick wall marred by faded graffiti. The girl clutches a large, pink rabbit plush toy to her chest.

Emma knows it's none of her business, but something about this child outside by itself concerns her.

"Hey, shouldn't you be in school?" Emma calls, walking towards her.

"I'm home sick," is the polite reply and the girl hugs the rabbit a little tighter.

"Well shouldn't you be inside where it's warm?"

"I'm waiting for a friend," the girl reports and her gaze travels past Emma's shoulder. Emma glances that way and sees nothing. "They said they'd come visit me today to see if I was feeling better."

"What's your name?"

"Paige."

"Paige, I'm Emma. I'm kinda turned around, could you tell me which way goes back to Main Street?"

"You're going the wrong way," Paige hops down off the wall and laces the hand that isn't clutching her stuffed rabbit through Emma's. Her hand is warm against Emma's palm.

"It's back this way, I'll show you," she says, tugging Emma through a gap in the low wall to a side-street she hadn't noticed before. "There's a shortcut."

The girl leads her in silence and Emma is content to simply follow, trying to get her bearings. It seems strange to her that someone could actually get lost in a town as small as Storybrooke; but then again, the fog makes it impossible to navigate by distant landmarks. She feels like a rat in a maze.

They come out on another deserted road that still doesn't look terribly familiar. Paige stops and lets go of Emma's hand, then points up the street. "Just go until you get to the intersection, then go right." She smiles. "You'll find it."

Emma squints in the direction the girl's pointing, frowning. Now that she thinks about it, she knows she's seen a couple of those houses before...

"Hey, thanks, kid," she says and looks back to her guide, but Paige is gone. She didn't even hear her run off, but fog has a tendency to muffle sound, so maybe it's not all that surprising.

With a shrug, Emma continues her way back towards Main Street, pulling her jacket a little tighter around her shoulders. Suddenly it's feeling far too cold.


	3. Mr Gold

After such a busy morning, the afternoon is comparatively anticlimactic.

The good news, Emma's car had been rescued from the border. The bad news, it was smashed pretty good and it would take at least a day to repair, meaning Emma is completely at the mercy of the mechanic. With an unknown number of empty hours ahead of her, and not wanting to return to the Mills' or Graham's, Emma had pointed herself towards the town records office. It's not as if she had anything better to do with her time, plus it didn't require her to keep buying coffee to keep indoors.

Storybrooke's Hall of Records is a forgotten wing in what might have been a town hall, if Storybrooke had any kind of functioning government. The sharp odor of mold burns Emma's nose as she steps through the main entrance. The yellow painted walls are faded and peeling, making a once cheery decorating choice into yet another sad reminder of just how forgotten and unwanted this town seems to be. Only a few dim, flickering lights illuminate the rooms as though the archive is unable to fund its existence as it is and is cutting corners the only way it knows how, leaving shadowy corners at every turn.

She stops at the front desk, which is unsurprisingly unoccupied by a living person; just piles upon piles of old paper, folders, and cartons. Feeling foolish, she waits there a few moments, wondering if anybody actually worked here or not, looking for any kind of bell to ring, which there isn't.

"Can I help you?"

Emma whirls around and a man is standing behind her with a mug of tea, peering suspiciously. She's starting to get used to this kind of treatment.

"Oh, hey, Mister uhhh...?" She glances at the dusty name placard on the desk. How the hell are you supposed to say Krzyszkowski?

"Mister Kay will do," he replies with tired patience of a man remembering why he hates people. "What do you want?"

Originally the idea had been to look for any indication of a girl being given up for adoption or disappearing from the town twenty-eight years ago. She might as well. After all, Henry had been correct that Storybrooke was the closest town to where she was found as a baby.

At this point in her life, her search for family has been reduced to throwing a dart at a map of the northeastern United States and hope for the best. See, the trouble with being found abandoned on the side of a highway is that the orphanage and agency handling her adoptions can't provide her with even a shred of non-identifying information about where she'd come from. Just to say she had, she left her name in reunion registers, but they were yet another dead end... something that hurt more than she expected. No one ever contacted her, meaning one was looking for her. Which meant nobody cared. Which made her wonder if maybe she should just give up now and do something more productive with her life.

Somehow that makes her more determined to find them, to see the sort of people who would abandon a kid on the side of the road.

"My name is Emma Swan. I was, er, wondering if you had any issues of the local paper, specifically from 1983," she says awkwardly. "I would have asked at the library, but the library is, er, was..." Completely abandoned and boarded up.

To her surprise, Krzyszkowski leads her through the perilously overcrowded main room into an adjoining space which is little more than a windowless closet where everything is covered in a thin layer of dust. Emma feels like she's going to contract a respiratory illness simply walking in.

"Microfilms are there, the reader's there," he says blandly, pointing vaguely in their directions. "Don't let anything get out of order."

'Would anybody notice?' is what Emma wants to say, but instead manages a polite "thanks" and he leaves her alone to her task.

Microfilm. Oh, joy.

Pawing through the drawers of reels that she's confident nobody has touched since they were filmed, it surprises Emma to discover that the earliest issue of the local rag dates exactly to 1983, which seems like the luckiest coincidence. Once she's managed to wrestle the earliest reel into place and feed the tape through, she flicks on the machine and starts rolling through different days of the Storybrooke Mirror looking at articles and for birth announcements, wedding announcements, obituaries... anything to give her a feel for the people who live here, or at least lived here. Maybe there would be pictures of her parents, whom she might resemble... Something, anything. She's desperate. But she finds nothing like that. What she does find, though, sends a shiver down her spine.

In the back of the paper, just before the crossword, is a spread of grainy portraits, each one with a name, physical description, and last known location of an individual. Missing children. Hungrily, she combs through each day, looking for her own name, for a picture, hoping, wondering, considering the possibility that maybe she had been taken from her parents and it wasn't them she should be angry with. When she reaches the end of one roll, she swaps for another and carries on.

By the time she reaches 1984, Emma hasn't found any missing infant children, but the disappointment fades seamlessly into intense unease. Every single week, Emma notices that new children are listed as missing. Sometimes only one, sometimes three. In one year alone, as many as forty children were unaccountably missing, all roughly between the ages of two and fifteen. Against her better judgment, she swaps 1984 out for 1985 and then 1988... but the trend continues.

All the sudden, Emma thinks back to the poorly-populated school yard and tries to ignore the chill that runs under her skin. No.

Were the children disappearing?

Adults she can understand—she's aware of how many "disappear" crossing the border, a mystery still requiring some light—but now children? No one had mentioned anything was happening to the _children_.

_1990._ Many of them were last seen playing in the backyard, or walking home from a friend's house. Pretty normal for missing kids, especially if they were kidnapped or ran away. But then other notices make the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. Some of children were like disappearing from bedrooms in the middle of the night or—the weirdest—during family dinner. _1992._ Absolutely no common denominator exists among the missing: rich and poor, all races, both genders... No stories about any being found, just always more missing.

And as far as she can tell from the reported news, no efforts have been made to find them, save for some huge-scale searches of the forest every five years or so (funded and organized by a certain Mr Gold) that turned up absolutely nothing, not even remains. At least every year, there's a story about "where are the children going," which can always be abridged to "nobody knows."

2010 is the last year microfilmed and with dread, Emma feeds it through reader, hoping that maybe the problem had been solved by now. It hasn't. If anything, the rate has increased.

What the hell is going on here?

And how the hell did Henry end up here? She'd given birth in Phoenix and yet somehow he got adopted by a family on the other side of the country, in the town that just happens to be nearest to where she was found—a town where children reach adulthood by accident and good fortune. Coincidences and weirdness are piling up faster than co-eds in a slasher film and Emma doesn't like this one bit. There's something strange here, something very, very strange.

Henry. Now she's beginning to understand Regina's state of constant vigilance where Henry is concerned, why she was in hysterics when he could not be located for only a couple hours. There's no rhyme or reason to the disappearances. For all anyone knows, Henry could be next and walking him to school was the last time she would ever see him.

Unease has been Emma's constant companion since she arrived here, but she wasn't aware of just how uncomfortable it was until about two seconds ago, when her stomach started churning and twisting. The worst part of it isn't the implications this discovery has on Henry—it's the fact that Emma actually cares about those implications. This is not what she needs right now. Emma can barely keep track of her own problems without adding those of a son she gave up years ago, one of the most responsible choices of her life. It's like her past isn't just haunting her, it's actively chasing her.

Heart pounding painfully, as casually as she can, she wanders back towards the record office clerk and leans against his desk.

"So, uh, Mister Kay. I was wondering," she begins.

"Hmm?" He doesn't look up from the old, brittle papers he's filing away.

"I couldn't help but notice that, according to the papers, like, half the children of Storybrooke are missing. Something nearing a thousand?" She notices him grow pale. "I was just wondering if you knew anything about that."

He stops riffling through paperwork long enough to watch her in guarded silence for a few seconds, then offers a shrug as he resumes his work. His voice, while not the friendliest she's heard, manages to grow colder. "Not really."

It's the biggest, fattest lie she's heard since she got here. "Right... And I suppose you can't tell me if any of those kids have ever been found?"

His response is an ambiguous shrug. More lies.

"Right. One last thing. I'd like to see the adoption records for Henry Mills."

Krzyszkowski's response is immediate and resolute. "Sorry. Legal guardians only. Anything else I can help you with?"

Emma has always struggled with the word "no." Anytime someone says she can't do something, or shouldn't, it only increases her resolve. Someday she might learn to rationalize this response and think twice, but today is not that day.

"No, that's alright. I'll go back to my microfilms. Thanks."

Emma shows him a smile, then retraces her steps back to her microfilm closet. In silence, she surveys the rest of the room and decides on her plan of attack. She needs those records whether they'll give them to her or not. The worst that could happen is she's thrown out or the sheriff takes her into custody, but neither outcome bothers her much. It's worth it, she thinks, for Henry.

So she creeps as quietly as she can around the perimeter of the room, carefully avoiding any loose papers that might betray her presence. The Hall of Records is small and there are really only two doors she can see, so she takes a breath and tries the first one, which opens silently. It's another windowless cell, so she flicks the light on. The walls are lined with filing cabinets, but what makes her blood run cold is what's on the opposing wall. In sloppy, faded red paint is a message written in two lines on the white plaster wall: THERE WAS A HOLE HERE, IT'S GONE NOW.

And what the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?

Emma doesn't know why this unsettles her, but she manages to tear her eyes away and towards the filing cabinets. They're unlocked and unlabeled, which surprises her, but as she rifles through a few of them, she finds they're full of nothing more than building permits, zoning commissions, business licensing, voter registration... which is interesting, considering Storybrooke doesn't even have a city council let alone a mayor.

With one last glance at the message, she vacates the room, careful to leave it as she found it, and moves on to the second door. The light switch doesn't work, so she pulls out her cell phone (still no signal) for lack of anything better. More filing cabinets, which she goes through as quickly as she can. Census records, court records... no, wait, she passed it. Adoption records. It's a small, thin folder and she carefully pulls it out. When she flips it open, she finds there are documents relating to only one person—Henry Mills. Apparently Henry is the only case of adoption Storybrooke has seen.

Her hands are shaking as she squints in the dark, skimming text via the poor light offered by the phone screen. Everything seems pretty much normal except... something "Gold" is listed as the adoption agent. There's that name again. (She can't read the first part, the ink's too smudged.) His signatures are everywhere-

"These aren't microfilms."

Emma flinches and just about drops her phone. Silhouetted in the doorway is Krzyszkowski, cornering her in the room. She can't see his face, but she'll bet he's not smiling. Immediately she drops the folder back into place and shoves the cabinet drawer closed with a resonating metallic clank.

"Uhh, sorry, I was just looking for the bathroom..." she replies, knowing full well he wouldn't be fooled.

And he isn't. "I don't want any trouble, Miss Swan..."

"Great, me neither. I'll just see myself out." She smiles at him as casually as she can as though this really was an honest mistake and not an interrupted illegal activity. It's a long, long several seconds before he steps aside.

"This is your only warning."

"Consider myself warned, thanks."

Krzyszkowski escorts her in silence to the archive entrance and all too soon, she's standing out on the street, looking over Storybrooke's empty streets.

Pulling her jacket tighter around her shoulders, Emma begins to walk back to Main Street.

Regarding the children, Emma knows she should go interrogate the sheriff, but she really doesn't want to talk to him right now. Plus, if the kids were disappearing the same way the adults were, she doubts he'll be able to tell her much. It'd be time wasted and Emma's life was full enough of that as it is.

No, she knows exactly who she needs to talk to.

–

There's a sign for a "Mr Gold's Pawnshop and Antiquities Dealer" and she figures that's as good a place to start as any. It's one of the few businesses still open.

An open sign hangs in the door window, so she lets herself into a poorly lit shop that smells sweetly of rot, of old things, of leather, of dust. A bell jangles cheerfully as she opens and shuts the door, announcing her presence. The shelves and tables are covered in a diverse jumble of objects without any coherent method of organization, like an indiscriminate home for lost things. Emma thinks instantly of the "I Spy" books she looked through as a kid.

"Mister Gold?" she calls, peering through the quiet gloom.

From behind a drape concealing the back room, a nervous, middle-aged man in a tweed suit and argyle sweater vest emerges. He's pale (who isn't in this town?), ginger, and looks uncomfortable in his own skin. Upon spying Emma, his face brightens though his voice still sounds thick and uncertain. "Hello, can I help you?"

"Are you Mister Gold?"

Immediately a smile breaks across his face and he begins to chuckle, but quietly as though scared of being caught. Her question genuinely seems to amuse him, enough so that Emma feels irritated.

"Ahh, no, I'm... I'm not Mister Gold," he explains after a few seconds, adjusting his glasses and clearing his throat. The smile remains on his face as if her little mistake has made his week. "My name is Archie Hopper. I, ahh... I look after the shop for him."

"So he's not here."

"No, I'm sorry, he's not. Mister Gold hasn't worked the counter in years, though he stops in from time to time. But, ahh, maybe there's something I could help you with?"

Emma recalls Regina saying he was a difficult man to get a hold of. But Regina doesn't work in bail bonds and isn't paid to hunt down people who don't want to be found. Challenge accepted.

"Could you tell me where he lives?"

"Wh-why would you..." Archie stammers as though she'd requested him to drown a puppy. "Why would you want to know...?"

"There are just some questions I want to ask him." And it's too easy to duck a phone call.

The man's expression crumples at this. "I know you're new here, which is why I'm going to ask... Are you sure you've tried everything else?" he asks in a low, urgent voice.

His reaction takes Emma a little off guard. "Why?"

"Because his solutions, while... while efficacious," he nervously adjusts his glasses again, "they come at a, um.. a very steep price." He meets her eyes. His are strangely pained, pleading. "Please believe me when I say he is truly your final resort. And if you really are serious about this, then might I offer you a phone number instead? He's easiest to deal with over... over the phone, trust me."

Emma's brow arches while watching this earnest man, feeling a kind of desperation from him she hasn't yet experienced from anyone else where. She can't tell who he's trying to protect here—her or his employer. Interesting. Either way, it didn't take her superpower to see this guy was telling the truth.

"That's good to know," she carefully replies, "but I really just wanted to ask him some questions."

The tension immediately disappears from the man's face and he takes a slow, relieved breath. He flushes a little. "Oh, yeah. That's-that's... okay then." He keeps his eyes averted as he rummages through a drawer. "You can try though I don't know how much good it'll do." He retrieves a business card bearing the same logo as on the store windows, underlines the phone number on the back, then offers it to her.

She glances at it without taking it. "Actually I'd still really like that address if it's all the same to you."

Archie grimaces, growing flushed again, and she can see the struggle in his eyes. If she didn't really want this information, she would have felt sorry for him. He fiddles with the pen, opening his mouth to say something, then seems to think the better of it. Finally, after a few seconds, he scrawls down a couple lines on the back of the card and murmurs quietly, "I'm really no-not supposed to do this. He doesn't really take all that kindly to visitors, but you're free to try."

Somehow that doesn't surprise Emma at all.

This time she accepts the card when he hands it to her and, after looking it over, she pockets it. "Thanks, Mr Hopper," she says, cracking an encouraging smile, then turns to leave the pawnshop.

"Please, don't mention it." His voice is soft. "Ever."

–

Mr Gold's house resides in a neighborhood that might have seemed respectable in any other town except that every house on the street seems abandoned, including his. But having walked too far to turn back now, she stands outside on the sidewalk, fighting every instinct to turn around and leave. It seems the house was once brightly colored—pink? Salmon? Really? That can't be right—but like everything else in this town, it's fallen into gross disrepair, with missing roofing tiles, filthy siding, peeling paint. It could have been charmingly eccentric once; now it looks foreboding and ominous. A tall iron fence completely encloses it in a large, empty yard devoid of green. Instead of grass, there's gravel with only the occasional yellow-brown weed poking listlessly through. Her mind helpfully suggests that it looks exactly the way one might expect a haunted house to look, all strangely built and poky. Just paint it a darker, uniform color, and... stop it.

Emma takes a deep breath. Her footsteps echo as she walks briskly up to the locked gate and flips open the cold box containing an intercom buzzer. She gingerly presses the button and waits. Compulsively she glances over her shoulder into the fog, which seems thicker here than anywhere else in town. She tries not to notice the dark shapes her mind conjures up and quickly whirls back around, jabbing her finger into the buzzer a little more urgently. Still no response.

Frowning, Emma stares through the bars at the house, squinting through the black, grimy windows for any kind of movement. There's absolutely no one. Suddenly she wonders if Archie wasn't so genuine and earnest as he seemed, if he really was protecting Gold by giving her the run around... That, or Gold is deliberately not answering the door, which she decides is probably the most likely of the two.

If he won't come to her, then she'll just have to come to him. Emma grips the cold iron of the gate and glances about for a good foothold. It isn't as if she's going to go so far as breaking-and-entering. She just wants a closer look, that's all. The worst she could be charged with is trespass on private property and even then, she's already seen that the sheriff doesn't exactly conduct himself by the letter of the law. And that's only if she's caught.

The gate's hinges help Emma a couple feet off the ground, but she'll have to get creative if she wants to clear the next few feet. While testing the strength of the intercom box, she happens to glance through the bars to the house.

In the second story parlor window Emma suddenly sees her staring, the auburn-haired woman with the waxy face and black sockets for eyes. Feeling like she'd been punched in the stomach, Emma lurches away from the gate with an audible gasp and lands hard on the concrete. Her gaze shoots back to the window, but the figure is gone. Goosebumps break out all along her body and suddenly Emma cannot get warm.

Yeah, no. Actually, Gold can wait. She'll come back another time.

Emma succumbs to her fear and breaks out into a full-on run away from the house like a twelve-year-old doorbell ditcher.

From inside the house, a man with dark circles under even darker eyes carefully pushes back the edge of a heavy drape to watch a blonde woman running away from his house as though her life depended on it. Like the house he resides in, he too looks a little worse for wear with a rumpled shirt and few day's worth of stubble accumulating on his haggard face. Expression thoughtful and distant, the corners of his lips quirk as though undecided on a smile or a frown. After a second, they resolve upwards into a flicker of a smirk. Suddenly he doesn't seem so old or so tired. Suddenly he looks alive.

But even before she entirely flees his sight, his attention darts away towards the street, beyond the gate into the shifting fog. Swallowing spasmodically, he stares hard into the nothingness for a long moment during which he seems not to draw breath. Something swirls faintly in the fog causing him to flinch back, and the drape falls back into place.


End file.
